Numbness
by CoolCoke
Summary: What Neal thought after the season 4 finale. MAYOR SOPILERS FOR THE SEASON 4 FINALE!


**MAYOR SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SEASON 4 FINALE!  
LIKE, SERIOUSLY, IF YOU HAVEN'T, READ ANOTHER FIC!**

NAME: Neal Caffrey

AGE: 35

CONVICTED OF: Bond Forgery, 4 years

WHEREABOUTS: Unknown

MENTAL STATEMENT: Unstable.

…

Neal had called Mozzie after he had collapsed on the chair right in front of him. The door was silent in its frame, even though Neal's brain made up beautiful pictures on it opening, of him coming in, of everything to be all right, for this couldn't be true, it wasn't true, he couldn't…

The call had been short, he had been halfway to calling Peter himself to tell him, to get some kind of support, before he remembered. Neal managed to get to the contact "Moz" and call it, but the only thing he could make out was a short "Get over here," before he pressed the button that declined the call. He was numb, more numb than he had been when he got arrested, when he lost that Rembrandt in Paris, when Alex almost died that time in Denmark…

Then, he still had the ability to _do something_, to change something, to con the Rembrandt back, to help Alex to France, to find happiness that he settled things with Kate.

The only thing that could possibly compare with this was the time Kate ended her life in a plane wreck because of a powerful man's greed. He was feeling hopelessness, and started to imagine cruel images of Peter getting burnt in the fire along with Kate. Neal swallowed. It was something, _anything_ he could do!

But there wasn't. Neal had tried, the betrayal he had felt when he found out his father wasn't framed, that he actually killed a guy to get out of a ring of dirty cops, a ring he had to join after stealing money from a crime scene didn't even compare.

It was all wrong. The killing, the dirty cops, the stealing. Neal knew it was wrong, because this was what Peter had taught him all these years they had worked together, and even before then. Neal had done the stealing. The dirty cops, he hadn't done that, and he didn't kill people. Twice. He didn't kill two people.

Neal stole, but if he was in his father's shoes, would he steal to give his family the shot to become clear of all debt? Would he get caught? Yes, he would steal. He wasn't sure about if he got caught, that all had something about conning your way out of there, but if he did, would he give up becoming dirty to get dragged in cuffs?

Neal wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he would call it a game over, and go with them in cuffs. Probably. But probably not. He had been all the way on the wrong side and back again, except from killing someone. Neal didn't kill people. Neal wasn't a killer. Neal was Neal.

But who was Neal?

His head rested in his sweaty palms. It wasn't important. He didn't matter. Peter mattered. Peter, who was sitting in the back of a squad car, on the way to an interrogation in his own office, in his interrogation room. Or maybe he was on the way to prison. An isolated cell in SuperMax, just like Neal had when he went in for stealing that pink diamond, and guards shouting orders at him. And all this because his father wouldn't go into that skyscraper and confess. Tell them all what had happened. Tell them it was in self-defense. Tell them he was the one who had fired that gun.

Neal didn't know a lot about himself, but he knew this. He would do that in a heartbeat. For Peter, for Mozzie, even after this, he would do it for his father. He'd run over to the FBI's headquarters and cuff himself to the bar under the table in the interrogation room and refusing to pick the lock before they had heard him out.

He almost did that too. That time he got _so_ close to confessing to Peter about stealing the treasure after Elizabeth's kidnapping. All those times he could have ran away, all those weeks with the treasure in his hand. That time he told the FBI that he was changed, even though they didn't believe him then (especially after he ran off to Cape Verde), he knew he would do it.

It was because it was the right thing. Everything was right with that. When he needed to get Keller off the streets, because he could hurt people, Neal knew that getting himself sent to prison was the only way. Neal didn't leave because of concequences. He liked the life he lead here. When he told the record and the board that he had changed, it was because he believed it. He had changed.

Neal would do the right thing. It wasn't for his own profit; he wouldn't do it for Peter to owe him something. Neal would've done it because it was _wrong_ even for his standars, and he was a con, a cheater, a grifter, there was nothing worse.

Except from the killer who dumped the guilt on the best person Neal had ever met.

"Neal?!" Mozzie hadn't even gotten through the door when he started shouting.

Neal cleared his sight for eventual tears and looked up to his partner in crime. This was going to be hard. And he had to get to Elizabeth too, before the FBI came. She had wanted to hear it from him.

...

**I can't believe we have to wait like half a year to get to know what happens with Neal and Peter and everything and the arrest and…**

**I've been in a numb state the entire day, after waking up 5am to see the episode. This was mainly what I got out of it, as a therapy for me to get to terms that PETER GOT ARRESTED! AND THAT JAMES DOUCHEBAG BENNET DIDN'T DO A THING! And I didn't see it coming, but I kinda saw him as the bad guy, but I pushed it away and now I feel so stupid and…**

**No Beta, which means there is a lot of mistakes here. Either ignore them or send me a pleasantly reminder in the reviews. **


End file.
